Debt ceiling negotiations are locked on a classic problem that has vexed Washington before: Republicans led by House Speaker Kevin McCarthy want to roll back federal government spending, while President Joe Biden and other Democrats do not
Debt ceiling negotiations are locked on a classic problem that has vexed, divided and disrupted Washington before: Republicans led by House Speaker Kevin McCarthy want to roll back federal government spending, while President Joe Biden and other Democrats do not.
Time is short to strike a deal before a deadline as soon as June 1, when the Treasury says the government risks running out of cash to pay its bills. Negotiators are expected to convene Wednesday for another round of talks as frustration mounts. The political standoff is edging the country closer to a crisis, roiling financial markets and threatening the global economy.
“They’ve got to acknowledge that we’re spending too much,” said McCarthy.
Cheered on by a hard-charging conservative House majority that hoisted him to power, McCarthy, R-Calif., was not swayed by a White House counter-offer to freeze spending instead. “A freeze is not going to work,” McCarthy said.
The longstanding Washington debate over the size and scope of the federal government now has just days to be resolved. Failure to raise the nation’s debt ceiling, now at $31 trillion, would risk a potentially chaotic federal default, almost certain to inflict economic turmoil at home and abroad.
From the White House, press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said it was “ridiculous” to suggest Biden wasn’t acting with urgency after Republicans complained about the pace. “He wants to see this done as soon as possible,” she said.
Dragging into a third week, the negotiations over raising the nation’s debt limit were never supposed to arrive at this point.
The White House insisted early on it was unwilling to barter over the need to pay the nation’s bills, demanding that Congress simply lift the ceiling as it has done many times before with no strings attached.
But the newly elected speaker visited Biden at the Oval Office in February, urging the president to come to the negotiating table on a budget package that would reduce spending and the nation’s ballooning deficits in exchange for the vote to allow future debt.
